My Love

Memories

2017

The library doors banged open hard enough that the reference librarian looked up, not bothering to look surprised.

Of course. It was Adrian Devereux.

"Laurent!" His voice carried over two rows of periodicals. "Tell me I didn't fail that exam."

A couple of first years turned to stare.

Elias didn't look up from his notes.

"Seventy-eight," he murmured, finally looking up, gaze flickering across the room.

"That's a fail," Adrian shot back, voice booming.

"That's a B," Elias fired back, motioning for Adrian to sit down. Almost every eye in the room was on them.

"For you, maybe." Adrian dropped into the chair across from him, chair legs shrieking against tile, and grabbed Elias's coffee before Elias could stop him. He made a face and drank it anyway.

"This is disgusting. You take your coffee black now?"

"I always have," Elias huffed, flipping the page of his book without looking up.

"No s**t. Since when?"

"Since we've known each other. Which you'd know and remember if you paid attention to anyone but yourself."

The two had become the topic of gossip since freshman year, when the unusual friendship between the alpha and the omega had developed beyond everyone's expectations. Adrian had come from one of the most affluent families in the country. Elias, despite coming from a well-to-do family himself, had hit it off with him back when Adrian beat up one of the alphas who'd been picking on him. Despite Adrian's loudness and arrogance, Elias discovered that the platinum-blond alpha was a genuinely good person.

Adrian grinned around the cup despite Elias's sass.

Two tables over, a girl was watching them with the specific hunger of someone who'd heard a rumor and wanted proof. Elias caught her eye by accident. She looked away fast, cheeks going red.

"They're staring again," Adrian boomed, at full volume, because being subtle was apparently not a trait he'd inherited.

The librarian cleared her throat from her table, staring daggers at them.

"They always stare." Elias shut his book, giving Adrian his full attention.

"Does it still bother you?" Adrian probed, a frown etched on his face.

"Does it bother you that you drink my coffee like it's yours?" the raven-haired boy threw back at him.

"Not even a little." Adrian shrugged with a wink.

The omega rolled his eyes at his gimmick, reached up, and pressed the peeling corner of a scent patch back down against the nape of his neck, an old habit, done without thinking. Adrian's eyes followed the motion.

"Is it coming soon?" the the older boy whispered, after another obnoxious throat-clear from the librarian, across the room. His blue eyes squinting at the younger boy.

"What?"

"Your first heat," the blond boy whispered, leaning in and scanning the room, lest anyone overheard.

Elias paled before a furious flush crept up his cheeks.

"Jesus, Adrian."

"Why..."

"Your neck's bruising. And your scent's changing..."

"Oh my God, you can't just ask that, Adrian. It's like asking if I was a virgin." Elias muttered, rubbing his neck.

"Of course I know you are—; anyways I know this pharmacy with the best scent mask and suppressant," the older boy babbled, before he noticed Elias's glare.

"What? I'm just trying to help." He quirked his brow, throwing his hands up in mock surrender.

"I don't need your help," Elias flicked a pen cap at him. "And no, I'm not in pre-heat. Just stressed. what do you even know about omega's biology?" Elias threw at him, chin on his palm, while giving him an expecting look.

Adrian caught the pen cap mid-air without looking, much to Elias' chagrin.

"You keep forgetting I have two older omega brothers." He clicked his teeth at Elias, flashing him a white smile.

Elias rolled his eyes. of course.

***

By eight they'd given up on studying and ended up at the student grill two blocks off campus, the kind of place that smelled permanently of fryer oil, cracked vinyl booths, a jukebox nobody had fed money into since spring.

"I could've gone pro," Adrian voice boomed over the music, waving a fry like evidence. "Ask anyone. Coach Bell wanted me on varsity freshman year. I turned it down."

"You turned it down because you almost blew out your ligament." Elias grinned around a mouthful of chips, obviously teasing the alpha.

"That's not the point," Adrian scoffed, taking a swig from his beer and trying to wipe the memory away.

"The talent was there, Devereux." Elias smirked into his cup.

From the next booth, a guy Elias half recognized from a poli-sci lecture leaned across the gap, grinning like he'd been invited.

"Devereux. Didn't know you still slummed it with this omega." His eyes raked down Elias and up again, quick and sizing. "Figured you'd have one of the pretty ones on your arm. Not him." A vague chin tilt at Elias.

The booth went quiet.

"Say that again," Adrian growled. He hadn't raised his voice. If anything it had dropped, flattened out into something with no give in it at all.

"I'm just saying, most omegas don't sit or dress like that." Another nod at Elias, at his elbows braced wide on the table, at the fact that he hadn't bothered making himself smaller for anyone in this diner, at the plaid shirt worn open over a white T-shirt.

The punch landed before the other alpha saw it coming.

Crack

He cupped his nose, growled at Adrian, ready to lunge before his girlfriend grabbed his arm and pulled him away.

Adrian watched them , as the alpha delivered a muffled threat. One beat longer than he needed to before picking his fry back up.

Elias hadn't said a word through any of it. He didn't need to. He'd had this conversation, one version or another, since orientation week.

"You didn't have to do that," he said with a start.

"Do what?" the alpha implored, taking another sip of his beer.

"That whole thing. You almost got into a fight," the omega reprimanded, glowering at the taller boy.

"He was being an ass."

"Most alphas will always be asses, that's half the campus. I don't need backup every time somebody opens their mouth."

Adrian looked at him a second too long. Something flickered behind his eyes. Then he shrugged.

"I don't know why you're mad at me when I pretty much defended your honor against an asshole. You reflect on me, Laurent. I can't have anyone speaking to you anyhow." He shrugged without care.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Elias slammed his beer down.

"Never mind." He grabbed his coat and bag, struggling to put them on correctly. He shrugged off Adrian's hands, paid the waiter, and left, leaving the door open behind him.

"s**t," Adrian muttered under his breath. He fished out a bill, left it under his bottle, and ran after Elias.

The walk back toward the Omega Quad was cold enough to see their breath. The campus was designed so that omegas had the entire southern section to themselves, for their own security.

Alphas and betas were strictly restricted from entering, while the Alpha/Beta Quad was located at the other end of campus.

Streetlamps threw yellow circles on the path as the cold October air danced around the trees. Adrian had quietly followed Elias, knowing he was too stubborn for his own good. He knew the younger boy was taking his anger out on the nearest alpha he could find.

He watched the raven-haired boy walk into the building before he headed toward his own quad.